Shopping carts have remained essentially unchanged in form for many years. Recently, however, with the availability of inexpensive, compact computing power, attempts have been made to add small computers to shopping carts to assist users with shopping. For example, it is known to attach bar code readers to shopping carts to allow users to perform price checks and/or to perform a self-check out. One example of such a system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,361,871 to Gupta, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference. However, the Gupta device appears likely to interfere with proper cart nesting and requires an electrical contact depending from the bottom of the cart for recharging which would likely be damaged in moving the cart through store aisles and/or over curbs in a store parking lot. It is not believed that systems such as the one disclosed in Gupta have been widely adopted.
Related shopper-assisting devices that clip or otherwise detachably mount to a shopping cart handle are also known. However, these must be taken from a rack or other storage location by a user and attached to a cart handle before use. When a shopper reaches the check-out line, store personnel must detach the unit from the car and return the unit to a storage and/or charging station or rely on the customer to perform these actions. It is believed that these inconveniences have kept such devices from being widely adopted.
It would therefore be desirable to provide an electronic shopper assisting device that is easy to use and maintain and that does not suffer from the aforementioned drawbacks.